For 60 years, one Fort Morgan man has been dedicated ensuring students have the opportunity to learn about science.

Elemer Bernath was a physics teacher here in 1955 when he took three students — Bill Spencer, Jerry Schaffer, Bob Adair — to the first Colorado Science and Engineer Fair.

This year, 18 students from Morgan and Washington counties took projects to the fair, of which Bernath is now the historian.

"We just decided we were going to do something with our hands, and doing some science fair projects," Bernath said of those first students. "And then I received an invitation from Boulder for the Bureau of Standards to go and take them...to the very first science fair for the state."

Since that time, 59 years ago, Bernath has missed only one fair when he took his family to England for Easter.

Bernath's life has been a long road that began in Hungary and wound through Germany and Britain before he found himself in Fort Morgan.

Born in Hungary, Bernath, who will be 89 next month, attended a British boarding school there until he was 18.

In 1945, he left Hungary with his mother and two half-brothers, ages 5 and 6 at the time, as the Russians entered the country.

"I decided that the Germans are going to be a little bit more lenient than the Russians are," he said.

The family settled in a small German town and eventually Bernath attended veterinary school in Munich.

In 1949, he decided he wanted to leave Germany. Because the British would not accept because of his ties to Germany, he decided to come to America.

In 1951, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a British ship, the SS Stewart, with 1,200 others.

He had a contract with a church that allowed him to be placed with a family while he completed a second veterinary degree. He was placed with a family in Fort Collins.

"Dr. Beyers was waiting for me, who was a dentist," he said choking up at the memory of arriving in Colorado by train. "He greeted me and he took me from Greeley (to his home in Fort Collins). He opened the door and said, 'this is going to be your home from now on.'"

Bernath began veterinary classes in 1952, but was eventually told he wouldn't be able to practice in the country and so decided to become a physics teacher.

However, his lack of citizenship made it difficult to find a teaching position, he said.

That was not an obstacle for Fort Morgan's superintendent at the time, though, and Bernath was hired to come to Fort Morgan High School

Before coming, he married Jean, "a lovely girl from Britain who was here working for Shell Oil Company". The couple would have three children.

By 1956, Bernath had gotten his American citizenship and was able to sponsor his mother and brothers to come here from Hungary, where they had returned in 1948. His brothers graduated from FMHS and both are now retired professors.

Bernath taught at FMHS for two years, before moving to the new junior high school at Baker for 10 year. He then returned to the high school, where he worked until 1984.

After he retired from teaching he became the city's recreation director.

"I'm the only one who stayed for 12 years," he said.

Elemer Bernath (Courtesy Photo / Fort Morgan Times)

In 1996, after his second retirement, Bernath was asked to come back to the school district as a substitute teacher. He has continued subbing until this spring, though he said this is probably his last term.

"I must have had at least 1,500 students," he said.

Among those students, a few he remembers participating in the fair included Schaefer, Adair, Don Ostwald, Allen Hoffman, Mike Mayberry and Tome Kammer.

"There were a lot of other individuals (involved over the years)," he said. "It takes a lot of people working together."

Some of the other teachers he worked with were Bob Keenan, Larry Schmeecre, Paul Hayes, Jim Powers and Kammer.

"I really felt that they need to learn something," he said. "They don't need to learn atomic bombs and things like that, but they can try something and do and make life better. We had some real good students."

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